


hey there demons (it's me, ya boi)

by dharmainitiative



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Buzzfeed Unsolved, Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Based On Buzzfeed Unsolved, Buzzfeed Unsolved References, Humor, M/M, Pining, Pining Richie Tozier, Scary, kinda? at the end? but nothing bad happens, the other losers make appearances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 02:40:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21129413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dharmainitiative/pseuds/dharmainitiative
Summary: “I think I heard moaning coming from downstairs,” Eddie says worriedly.“It’s probably just the ghosts having sex,” Richie says, still half asleep.“Shut up, Richie.”or: a buzzfeed unsolved au





	hey there demons (it's me, ya boi)

**Author's Note:**

> is this realistic? is this in character? i don't know, but it IS a silly and cheesy fic riddled with gratuitous buzzfeed unsolved references, so do with that what you will
> 
> content warning: things get a lil scary towards the end, but considering this is a fic for a movie about a demon clown, it's definitely nothing worse than what y'all have seen before
> 
> also shoutout to the clown movie squad for encouraging me, liking my tweets abt this fic, and/or writing their own fics that inspired me to write this, because without y'all this fic would probably still be just a vague idea in my head

If someone had told Richie Tozier that he’d be hired as an intern for BuzzFeed at 23, he probably would’ve believed them, because getting paid to fuck around, grab coffee for people, and come up with bullshit listicles with the occasional cat gif thrown in sounded exactly like the kind of job Richie would’ve landed shortly after graduating from college.

As it was, BuzzFeed wasn’t a bad place to work, despite all the shit Richie gave it. He was paid well, there were always a bunch of cushy chairs everywhere, and the food that got brought in for lunch everyday was way better than the shitty grilled cheeses he ate at home for dinner. And despite what Richie expected, his coworkers were actually pretty cool, all things considered. Sure, they were all millenials who thought landing an internship at BuzzFeed was the height of success, but most of them were friendly, and occasionally funny, and like Richie, just excited to get paid to do something that required little to no effort.

Most of them, at least. There was also Eddie Kaspbrak.

Richie met Eddie his first day at BuzzFeed, when he was shown his desk and the incessantly chatty intern that sat at the desk right next to him. Working side by side — literally — let Richie learn a lot of things about Eddie Kaspbrak: he was a neurotic hypochondriac, exclusively owned Polo shirts, and talked faster than Richie could even blink.

Eddie also existed primarily to get on Richie’s nerves, which was fine, actually, because Eddie rolled his eyes at the shit that came out of Richie’s mouth at least five times a day, so he was pretty sure the feeling was mutual.

They argued constantly — much to the disdain of their coworkers — but it wasn’t  _ really  _ arguing, exactly...just petty bullshit they spouted at each other to pass the time. And if Richie was being honest, it was a little thrilling to meet someone who could match his bullshit with just as much bullshit of their own. So at the end of the day, he doesn’t mind the arguing as much as he pretends to.

So Richie goes from intern to junior staff editor to full-time content writer, with Eddie by his side, and after all that time spent antagonizing each other, tossing around stupid “your mom” jokes, and arguing about the most inconsequential things imaginable (“Pineapple pizza makes me no longer want to be alive.” “You can’t say that when you’ve never even tried it, Eds.”), Richie turns around years later and realizes they’ve become friends.

Not that there weren’t some close calls, of course — three years into working at Buzzfeed, Eddie swore he’d never speak to Richie again when he told him he didn’t believe in ghosts.

“The fact that you refuse to admit that there are just some things in life that we can’t explain is cowardly,” Eddie had insisted vehemently. “You’re a coward.”

“You’re the dumbass that believes in things you have no evidential proof of, man.”

“Just because I can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not real!” Eddie cried. “There are  _ plenty  _ of things that you can’t see but are real.”

“Name  _ one. _ ”

“Uh, fucking gravity?”

“Yeah, I can drop an apple.”

“...Fuck.” Eddie muttered under his breath.

And as ridiculous as it sounds, that wasn’t their only argument about ghosts, either. For reasons Richie couldn’t figure out, Eddie was both obsessed with the supernatural, and also irrationally convinced that ghosts were real. And no matter how much evidence Richie — who was rational, and not completely deluded — brought up to counter this belief, Eddie never remained anything less than (delusionally) passionate. 

Which is why it isn’t at all surprising to Richie when after years of working at Buzzfeed, Eddie pitches a ghost-hunting-slash-true-crime show to the heads of video production at YouTube. 

It’s also not surprising to Richie when they say yes.

“They actually seemed really into the idea!” Eddie tells him excitedly over lunch (burritos at Chipotle, their usual Friday lunch spot.) He’d also told Richie that he was the first person to get the good news, which Richie is trying not to be outwardly smug about. “They think it’ll do really well, especially since true crime is all the rage right now. And they’re ready to start shooting next month.”

“That’s great, man,” Richie says, hoping he sounds sincere. He  _ is  _ sincere, really — this is going to be a great opportunity for Eddie, and he’s been wanting to do something like this for almost as long as Richie has known him. But, selfishly, he feels a little disappointed, because he’s been working no less than twelve feet apart from Eddie for six years now, and BuzzFeed isn’t going to be quite as fun if Eddie isn’t around to annoy him.

“Yeah. It’s really great,” Eddie agrees. Then he pauses to pull a stray piece of iceberg lettuce out of his burrito. “But they think it’ll be a better show if I find a co-host? So I have to do that first before I can start prepping for anything.”

“Oh,” Richie says, a little surprised. “That’s cool. Who are you thinking for the co-host?”

Richie thinks Eddie will say Ben or Bev, who are both good friends of theirs. Or even Mike or Bill, who they’ve both known since they were interns. Richie figures either would be a good choice — Mike is super organized and really into research, and Bill is just as obsessed with horror and the supernatural as Eddie is.

But instead, Eddie says, “Well, I was going to ask you.”

Richie lowers his burrito. “What? Why?”

Eddie’s shoulders droop, like he’s a kicked puppy and not a 29-year-old man. “I mean, you can say no.”

“No, I’m going to do it, fuck off,” Richie says, and Eddie looks up and laughs. “But I mean, why me? I don’t even believe in ghosts.”

“I know, but that’s why I’m asking you. Partly, anyway. Like, I feel like your skepticism will balance out my obsessive belief in the supernatural — ” Here Richie snorts, and Eddie narrows his eyes. “Shut up. Anyway, I feel like that could set us apart from other ghost shows. Like, people will know that we’re not faking anything because a full-bodied apparition could appear right in front of us and you would  _ still  _ probably be like, ‘Yeah, I think that was the wind, Eds.’”

“That was a really good impression,” Richie praises, impressed.

“Yeah, I’ve been practicing,” Eddie says, deadpan, and Richie laughs. “I just think it could be fun. And I know I could’ve asked Mike or Bill or someone but I just figured I’d ask you, cuz, I don’t know. I feel like we make a good team.”

Richie blinks. “Oh.”

To Richie’s surprise, Eddie flushes and looks away. “Yeah, whatever. So? Yes or no?”

Richie considers this. “Am I gonna get a raise?”

“Hell yeah you are.”

“Then let’s fucking do it,” he decides, and Eddie grins.

And thus,  _ Unsolved  _ — or, as Richie calls it from that moment forward, “Eddie’s little passion ghost project that I graciously agreed to help him out on” — was born.

  
  
  
  
  


About six months into producing the show, Richie bursts into work one morning and loudly demands, “Have you seen the memes?!”

Eddie, sitting at his new desk in the corner of the office, takes a sip from what’s probably his second cup of coffee that morning and lifts his eyebrows. “What?”

“The  _ memes, _ ” Richie repeats, before dropping into his wheely chair at his own desk and rolling it over to Eddie’s.

There was a point in their friendship where Eddie probably would’ve rolled his chair away in response, but that point has long passed. Richie has always been a little touchy-feely, and Eddie likes his space, but lately he’s been a lot more reciprocal to Richie ruffling his hair, patting him on the shoulder, or sticking his feet under Eddie’s thighs while they’re sitting on Eddie’s couch than he was when they first met.

So when Richie crowds next to Eddie’s chair and practically drapes over him to show him the memes he has saved on his phone, Eddie simply huffs out an annoyed sigh, but doesn’t move away.

Richie pulls up his first meme, which is a screencap of him in the episode where they visited the Old City Jail in Charleston and he’d shouted, “KICK MY ASS, SPIRITS!”

“That’s a meme?” Eddie wheezes. “What kind of context would be required for someone to use that as a meme?”

Richie goes back to the original tweet, which reads, “when it’s midterm season but also halloween season and u go to a haunted house in the hopes that you’ll die before ur exam.”

“That’s...specific,” Eddie says.

“But wait! There’s more!” Richie says grandly, and searches through his screenshots to pull up another meme, this one a screenshot of Eddie on Goatman’s Bridge, looking like he’s going to shit his pants at any second. Eddie laughs out loud at that and Richie beams at him before swiping through his camera roll again to show Eddie a picture of him from one of their Q&A episodes with the caption “he’s sexy but in a rat kind of way.”

Eddie laughs again, but in an embarrassed way. It kind of sounds like a chicken being strangled, but it’s weirdly endearing at the same time. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means you’re sexy,” Richie explains. “But in a rat kind of way.” Eddie still looks confused, so Richie gives him a once-over. “I mean...they’re not wrong.”

“Whatever,” Eddie mutters, flushing and shoving Richie hard enough that his chair moves backwards. 

“Anyway, there’s more where that came from,” Richie says, immediately rolling next to Eddie again. “I have a whole folder of memes in my camera roll.”

“You’re very excited about this,” Eddie observes. He’s back to staring at his laptop, but he has an amused smile on his face that he isn’t quite bothering to hide, which makes Richie’s stomach do a weird thing that he decides to ignore. 

“I just feel that becoming a meme is a rite of passage,” Richie explains. “Like, you either die a hero, or you live old enough to see yourself become a meme.”

Eddie laughs at that, too, and Richie grins. 

“I’m fine becoming a meme if it means people are actually watching the show,” Eddie says, and it’s true — despite the fact that it's run by two annoying idiots who never shut up, ever, the show is doing  _ extremely  _ well. At first, their only viewers were their coworkers and maybe Richie’s parents, but their latest video just went up three days ago, and it already has over a million views. 

Richie feels pretty good about it, honestly, which is nothing compared to how excited Eddie is over his little ghost show becoming a pop culture phenomenon. It’s a little annoying how smug he is about it, actually, but again, at the same time, it’s a little endearing, too. 

“Of course. The show is what’s most important,” Richie says now, solemnly.

Eddie rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling amusedly, so Richie isn’t all that offended.

  
  
  
  
  


Almost a year into  _ Unsolved,  _ Richie and Eddie are in the middle of filming a True Crime episode on the Killer Clown of Rochester when Richie interrupts Eddie by saying, “You know I was almost killed by a clown once?”

Eddie stares. “ _ What? _ ”

“Yeah man, it was back in middle school. I was walking home and there was this bridge I used to cross every day, and so I was walking across it when this guy started shouting my name beneath the bridge.”

Eddie’s eyebrows raise sharply. “He knew your  _ name? _ ”

“Yeah but I figured it was just some homeless guy, you know?”

“How would some homeless guy know your name?”

“You know, I’d actually really appreciate it if you’d let me fucking finish.”

“Like you didn’t interrupt this entire episode to share your fucking clown story,” Eddie shoots back, but he dutifully lets Richie continue.

“Anyway, there’s this fucking clown just...chilling down there! He had a balloon or some shit and he was asking me to come with him to the circus.”

“ _ Shut the fuck up. _ ”

“I’m serious!” Richie insists.

“What did you do?”

“I got the fuck out of there! What do you think, dude?”

“You’re the dumbass that actually stopped to look over the bridge!” Eddie says defensively. “So did you ever see him again?”

“Nah,” Richie says. “And I actually think think you’re the first person I’ve ever told this to, because I knew my parents wouldn’t believe me. Sorry, Mom and Dad,” Richie says, now turning to the camera, and Eddie wheezes. “And like, I never heard anyone else in town say anything about seeing a clown either, so I figured it was just some weird freak thing. But also two kids went missing that summer, so I don’t know.”

“No way,” Eddie says, eyes wide but narrowed at the same time, which should be impossible, but Eddie Kaspbrak is such an enigma of a person that it happens all the same. “If you’re just bullshitting me, I swear…”

Richie gasps, pretending to be offended. “You think I’d lie to my  _ best friend _ and millions of viewers?”

He expects Eddie to scoff, or say yes in a sarcastic voice, but instead he says, in quite a different voice, “I’m your best friend?”

Richie stops and looks over, where Eddie is watching with a look he doesn’t recognize. It shouldn’t be some sort of revelation, especially because it’s not like there’s anyone else in Richie’s life that he’s remotely close enough to to warrant the title of “best friend.”

Stan, maybe. But Richie’s pretty sure if Stan was asked, he’d say his best friend was Mike. So maybe not.

“Well...yeah,” Richie says in what’s supposed to be a  _ duh  _ voice, but sounds way quieter and more honest than he intended. Ridiculously, he feels his ears burn. 

Eddie positively beams at him. “That’s cute.”

“Yeah, I fucking am,” Richie says without missing a beat, but he can feel his face getting hot, which is  _ seriously  _ ridiculous, what the fuck. “Don’t get a big head about it, dude.”

“I don’t know, this was a pretty big ego boost,” Eddie says, and then turns to Stan, who stands behind the camera. “Stan, how does it feel to know you’re not Richie’s best friend? The audience needs to know.”

“Oh, Stan hates me 99% of the time, he doesn’t give a shit,” Richie says easily.

Stan shrugs from behind the camera. “It’s true.”

“I mean, same,” Eddie says, and Richie pouts at him. “Also…are you hiding any other crazy shit from me? Because I’m seriously thinking about letting you host the next True Crime episode.”

“Nah, I’d be shit at it,” Richie says. “I’d get too distracted trying to tell the story because I’d keep interrupting myself to make offensive jokes and then I’d get our show cancelled.”

Eddie assesses this, then decides, “Yeah, that’s true, nevermind.”

Then he resumes his theories, and Richie definitely doesn’t spend the rest of the day trying to figure out what, exactly, the slight smile Eddie had worn for the rest of the day meant.

  
  
  
  
  


The Dramatic Turtle Saga happens entirely by accident. That’s Richie’s story, and he’s sticking to it.

As  _ Unsolved  _ gained more and more popularity, Richie and Eddie started filming Q&A episodes to address any and all ghost or unsolved mystery related questions their fans came up with. And to close out their episodes, they started this fun bit where they’d throw in some animated turtles waddling around and telling their viewers to follow them on Twitter and Instagram.

(“Why turtles?” Eddie had asked when Richie had first come up with the idea.

“You got a fucking problem with turtles, dude?” Richie had demanded.)

It was harmless fun at first, but as time went on, Richie got a little more inventive. The turtles started wearing bowties, started getting names, and before he knew it, he was crafting a multi-generational saga about two turtles falling in love, and then it all kind of spiraled from there.

It probably wouldn’t have spiraled at all, except for Eddie vehemently hated The Dramatic Turtle Saga, and seeing Eddie get increasingly more frustrated every week brought Richie more joy than he could put into words, so he very obviously had to keep the story going. 

The Dramatic Turtle Saga was very divisive amongst their viewers. Some thought it was hilarious, while others called it the worst piece of media to ever grace YouTube. 

Regardless, Richie was non-ironically pretty fucking proud of it. 

But as badly as he wanted to put a nod to his masterful creation in the main show, Eddie refused to let him “ruin”  _ Unsolved,  _ or as Eddie had called it, “a product of hard work, not just somebody fucking around.”

Richie whistled. “Harsh.”

But if it weren’t for Eddie, Richie would still be writing click-bait articles rather than hurling insults at ghosts and demons and watching Eddie grow increasingly more and more frustrated, so The Dramatic Turtle Saga remained restricted to the Q&A episodes, until one day, about two years into  _ Unsolved, _ they’re filming a True Crime episode and discussing theories behind the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, and Richie says, “The ransom note is just...it feels like the parents backed themselves into a corner and are just trying to cover up their tracks, only none of it makes any sense.”

“Yeah. Kind of like you and The Dramatic Turtle Saga,” Eddie says, and then immediately claps his hand over his mouth.

Richie’s face splits into a wide grin. “Holy shit.”

“Nope,” Eddie quickly interrupts. “Nope, moving on, pretend I never said that.”

“Oh there’s no coming back from this, Eduardo,” Richie says, cheerily slinging an arm around Eddie’s shoulder. “I can’t believe  _ you  _ were the one to bring The Dramatic Turtle Saga into the main show!”

“I know!” Eddie groans, burying his face in his hands.

“Not only that, but I’m  _ pretty sure  _ you compared The Dramatic Turtle Saga to a child getting murdered.”

“Shut up!” Eddie says, swatting Richie on the arm. “I did not! I compared it to  _ covering  _ up a murder because  _ you’re  _ always covering up...like, plot holes and shit!”

Richie takes a sip of his coffee and smirks into the cup. “That’s even worse, dude.”

“Shut up!” Eddie snaps, but he’s grinning a little bit. “It’s over! We’re moving on!”

Richie definitely feels very smug about the whole thing, but he also knows good and well that Eddie is the final decision on what makes it into the episode, and there’s no way he’d ever allow Richie’s turtles to touch his precious ghost show.

Which is why he’s surprised when that Friday, while he’s watching the show on his laptop on Eddie’s couch, he gets to the part where Eddie brings up The Dramatic Turtle Saga.

In fact, he’s so surprised that he pauses the episode, takes out his headphones, looks up at Eddie, and says, “You left in the turtle bit?”

Eddie is in the kitchen, standing over the oven, his back turned to Richie. They typically spend Friday nights at Eddie’s, where he makes his famous homemade pasta (“See, the nickname Eddie Spaghetti actually makes sense!” “Shut up, Richie.”), they eat dinner, drink some beers, and then watch the episode together and try to think about what kind of questions they’ll have to answer for the Q&A episode. 

Eddie turns away from the stove to pout at Richie. “You’re watching without me?!”

Richie slowly shuts his laptop, and Eddie frowns. “Hey, you edit it. It’s not like you haven’t seen it.”

“It’s the principle of the thing.”

“Whatever,” Richie says, and points back down at his laptop. “The turtles?”

Eddie turns away. “I don’t know how that made it in, I swear I veto-ed it when we were editing.”

Richie narrows his eyes. “Eds.”

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie says automatically, and then, his shoulders hunched up to his ears, “I don’t know. You were f—  _ it  _ was funny, so I kept it. Whatever.”

One time, a couple of years ago, when Ben and Bev had gotten engaged, Ben told Richie about the moment he realized he was in love with Bev — his  _ oh  _ moment. They’d been working for BuzzFeed together for about two years, and Ben had been stressing over a deadline or something, when Bev had shown up with coffee exactly the way he’d liked it without him even asking for any, and that’s when he’d known she was the one.

It was objectively kind of romantic, but it was also cheesy and gross, so at the time Richie had inevitably made a joke at their expense, and they’d all rolled their eyes and told him to shut up, and then they’d moved on.

By comparison, sitting on his best friend’s lumpy couch, touched that he kept in his stupid animated turtles, is not romantic at all. It is, in fact, very embarrassing, and very, very lame. 

But maybe it isn’t just the turtle thing. Maybe it’s also that Richie is at Eddie’s apartment, on his very lumpy couch that has somehow grown more comfortable over time, like he is every Friday night. Maybe it’s that watching the episode and laughing at dumb memes on Twitter and eating homemade spaghetti has somehow become the best part of his week without him realizing it. Or maybe it’s because seeing Eddie almost every day and spending the majority of his time with him, chasing ghosts and arguing over stupid bullshit and making him laugh, is — if he’s being completely honest with himself (which he doesn’t tend to do) — the happiest he’s been in a while.

So when Eddie, who left in the bit about Richie’s stupid animated turtles just for him, turns around from the oven to glance back at him, Richie thinks to himself,  _ Oh.  _

And then,  _ Well, I’m fucked. _

  
  
  
  
  


Richie privately thinks that maybe this entire dilemma would be a little more bearable if he’d only just recently started to fall in love with his best-friend-slash-coworker. It’d be a big adjustment, sure, but at least the shift in his dynamic with Eddie would distract him from the terrifying feeling of being in love with someone and knowing you’ll never be able to tell them.

But Richie doesn’t think he’s only recently started to fall in love with Eddie. Instead, what’s actually happening is that he only recently  _ realized  _ he was in love with Eddie. He thinks this because — despite a brief stint of awkwardness after the initial realization — nothing at all has changed. When he thinks about it, the way his stomach flips when Eddie laughs, or the stupid grin he gets when Eddie remembers his coffee order, or the way he freezes when Eddie falls asleep on his shoulder when they’re watching a movie together — these reactions aren’t new. The only new thing about any of it is realizing that this has been going on for a long time — probably longer than they’ve been filming  _ Unsolved,  _ actually, and isn’t that fucking terrifying? 

So Richie deals with the problem the way he deals with everything else: he pretends it doesn’t exist.

This would be easier to do if the problem didn’t exist in the form of a 5’9” pain in his ass, who is both his best friend and coworker, aka a person he sees every single fucking day. But what Richie can’t ignore, he can  _ pretend  _ to ignore, and he’s never had a problem with pretending.

And it’s going pretty well, actually — or it was, until they stay in the Winchester house.

Normally when they stay overnight at these sorts of places, they pick the most active room to set up camp in. Richie usually knocks out like a light, but Eddie typically stays up for most of the night, trying to record “evidence.”  Once, Eddie had woken him up by turning on the spirit box at 3 AM,  _ right  _ next to Richie’s head, and Richie had whacked him across the head with his pillow until he’d finally turned it off.

He hasn’t tried a stunt like that since.

Things are a little different in the Winchester house, though. There’s so many rooms, a lot of them pretty active and filled with ghouls and the like, so to collect sufficient evidence, they decide to split up.

Surprisingly, it’s Eddie’s idea. 

“How else are we supposed to get any evidence?” Eddie demands when Richie questions him.

Richie holds back his typical “ghosts aren’t real” retort and says, “You sure you can handle this, man?”

“It’ll be fine,” Eddie insists.

But apparently he’s not fine, because at 3 AM Eddie comes into the room Richie is camped out in for the night and hisses, “Rich!”

Richie, who had been dead asleep, jolts awake. “What?” He snaps.

Eddie is quiet for a minute, then says, “I heard, like...moaning.”

“It’s probably just the ghosts having sex, man.”

“Shut the fuck up, I’m serious.”

“So am I,” Richie grumbles into his pillow. “Go back to sleep.”

“I can’t,” Eddie whines, and seriously, Richie is gonna kill him. Then, so quietly he almost isn’t sure he heard it, “Can I sleep with you?”

_ Now  _ Richie’s awake. “What?”

“I  _ said,  _ can I sleep with you?”

“I don’t know, Eds. Your mom could be watching this episode, you know. She might get jealous.” 

The response is instinct. Eddie huffs in annoyance. “Whatever, I’m coming in,” he says, and sure enough, he drops his blanket right next to Richie’s and crawls inside.

“Oh,” Richie says, at first unsure of how to process this sudden development. Then, “If you try to turn on the ghost box again…”

“Relax, I’ve learned my lesson,” Eddie says. “Although — ”

Eddie’s interrupted by a loud  _ bang  _ from downstairs, which even Richie hears. Eddie lets out a scream and promptly draws even closer to Richie, so close that they’re actually sharing the same pillow. Richie freezes.

“Sorry,” Eddie says immediately.

“It’s fine,” Richie hears himself say.

“Holy shit. Did you hear that? And don’t say it was just the wind.”

“I mean,  _ technically  _ it could be.”

“I fucking hate you.” He still hasn’t moved his head from Richie’s pillow. “You know what? We’re just gonna share this pillow tonight. Is that fine? It’s gonna be fine, because that’s what we’re doing.”

“It’s fine,” Richie hears himself say again, and then, for some stupid reason, he spreads out his blanket so that it’s partially covering Eddie, too. Eddie, who is apparently  _ trying  _ to kill him, whispers  _ thanks  _ and snuggles even closer. Richie swallows, and then, to prevent further panic, says, “Told you you wouldn’t last by yourself.”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘I told you so,’ whatever,” Eddie grumbles. “I’m going to sleep. Shut up.”

“Goodnight to you, too, Eds.”

He doesn’t actually expect Eddie to fall asleep. He knows how these things work — Eddie will likely spend the next hour or two hyper-alert, listening out for every possible creak in the stairs or wind rattling the windows, and will nudge Richie awake at  _ least  _ twice in the middle of the night to ask if he heard that, too.

But Richie has better things to do than indulge in Eddie’s ghost delusion — like, actual sleeping, for instance — so he closes his eyes and drifts off, trying to ignore the fact that he and Eddie are like two steps away from spooning.

However, when he wakes up — six, blissfully uninterrupted hours later — this becomes a little harder to ignore, because  _ somehow,  _ in the middle of the night, their legs ended up tangled together beneath the blankets and Richie’s arm ended up slung across Eddie's waist.

_ What the fuck,  _ Richie thinks as he lies there for several mortifying seconds, unsure of how to approach the situation and what to do before Eddie wakes up and  _ holy shit, there’s a camera in the corner of the room filming this entire thing, isn’t there? _

In the end, he does the only thing he can think of to do. He leans over and sticks his tongue directly in Eddie’s ear.

“What the FUCK, dude!” Eddie shouts, immediately rolling away from him.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Richie says in a sing-song voice. Eddie shoots him a glare. “I never knew you were a little spoon.”

Eddie looks away to roll up his blanket. “Shut the fuck up, Richie.”

“Seriously, you were out like a  _ light  _ last night,” he continues. “I woke up in the middle of the night thinking you’d turned on the spirit box but it turns out it was just you snoring.”

“You probably woke yourself up with your own snoring,” Eddie counters, still rolling his blanket. “When I was younger my mom was worried I had sleep apnea, so she made me get tested and the doctors told me I was the most silent sleeper they’d ever tested.”

“Of course they did,” Richie snorts. “Seriously, did you actually sleep the whole night? No waking up convinced that the creak in these old ass floorboards was a voice from beyond?”

“No, I was okay, actually,” Eddie says, pulling at a loose string on the blanket. He opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again and says, “Sometimes it’s easier with you. Like, it’s easier to forget we’re in one of the most terrifying places in America when you’re around.”

He says it so honestly that for a moment, Richie is honest-to-God at a loss for words, which has pretty much never happened to him in his entire life.

And then things are quickly back on track when Eddie adds, “Probably because when you’re around you talk so fucking much that I can’t actually hear what the ghosts are trying to say.”

“Probably,” Richie agrees, quickly recovering because that confession was not romantic in any way, no matter how much he wants it to be. It was just a nice comment, something a friend would say to another friend when they’re not being an asshole for once, because Eddie is his  _ friend,  _ and that’s all they’re ever gonna be, and that’s fine. 

Then he adds, “That, and I’m ghost proof.”

“Right, I forgot,” Eddie says with an eye-roll, and Richie grins.

Their cuddling session doesn’t make it into the final cut of the episode, and neither does the conversation they had the morning after. He assumes it makes it to the editing table, though, because when he comes into work that Monday, Stan gives him a knowing look.

Richie really ought to tell Eddie that they need to hire another camera guy.

  
  
  
  
  


“The Ellie House,” Eddie announces, out of fucking nowhere.

Richie looks up from the memes he’s scrolling through on his phone. “Uh. What?”

“That’s our next destination,” Eddie explains, forgetting that Richie is not privy to the constant and incessant chatter in his head, as he often tends to do. 

“Oh,” Richie says, and then turns back to his phone. “Nice.”

The two of them are on the break room couch, Eddie lying on one end and Richie sitting at the other. Stan is in the beanbag next to them, editing their latest episode and listening to an audiobook or something equally as boring. Every now and then he’ll take out his headphones to ask them a question about the episode. He also occasionally looks up just to glance at Eddie’s feet in Richie’s lap and give Richie a knowing look.

It’s very annoying. Richie’s starting to wonder if he should ask Bill if he wants Stan’s job. 

Presently, Eddie gently kicks his socked foot into Richie’s face, knocking his glasses askew. “What the fuck?” Richie snaps, shoving him.

“I wish you’d at least pretend to be interested in this shit,” Eddie says in a huff. “Just because you don’t believe in ghosts doesn’t mean you can’t be excited for me.”

Richie leans forward, propping his elbow up on Eddie’s thighs and putting his chin in his hand in an effort to appear attentive. “Oh, Eds, please forgive me. Feel free to tell me more about this wonderful house you think is filled with ghouls and spirits but is no more haunted than the Chipotle we ate at for lunch Friday.”

Eddie laughs brightly — it’s very cute, which Richie tries very hard to ignore — and shoves him away. “Shut up, dude, this is  _ serious! _ This is our obligatory demon of the season.”

At this, Richie becomes remotely interested. Eddie  _ hates  _ visiting haunted locations with demons, and Richie loves it, because he gets to see Eddie lose his shit over absolutely nothing for twelve hours straight. “Oh? Do tell.”

“Basically a bunch of people have seen this girl named Ellie throughout the house, and everyone thinks she’s just a demon who appears in the form of a little girl.”

“And you’re excited about this?”

“Oh, I’m terrified,” Eddie says without missing a beat, and Richie wheezes. “But I’m also optimistic that this will be the place where we finally get a full-bodied apparition, and/or you decide you believe in ghosts.”

“Never gonna happen,” Richie says, and Eddie kicks his foot in his face again.  “Dude!” He shouts, shoving him, and Eddie shoves back, and Stan takes that moment to take his headphones out, give Richie another look, and mutter something about “intricate rituals” that Eddie thankfully doesn’t overhear.  Like it’s  _ Richie’s  _ fault that he’s thirty-three and gay and repressed. What an asshole. Richie flips Stan off behind his back where Eddie can’t see, and Stan rolls his eyes and turns back to his laptop.

“Regardless,” Eddie says now, moving his feet back to their original position on Richie’s lap. “I think our viewers will be excited.”

“To see you lose your shit? Definitely.”

“Hey, I’m a professional ghost hunter now. I’m a  _ pro _ . I can handle this.”

“If that’s what you need to tell yourself.”

“Shut up,” Eddie says, but he’s grinning, and Richie stops himself from grinning back because he know it’ll look way too fond and way too revealing.

So he turns to look at his phone, and tries to remember a simpler time, when he didn’t hunt ghosts for a living and also wasn’t inconveniently in love with his co-host-slash-best-friend.

  
  
  
  
  


When Eddie asks Richie if he wants to get drinks with Ben and Bev the night before they visit the Ellie House, Richie should say no. Really, he should, because he needs to start catching up on sleep now, as there’s no way he’s going to get a full night’s rest in the Ellie House. Not because he’s scared of ghosts, but because  _ Eddie  _ is going to be, and it’s impossible to sleep when Eddie is next to him screaming any time a tree branch scrapes against the window or something.

But despite all of this, when Eddie asks, Richie says yes, because he’s lately found it very impossible to say no to Eddie. 

Seriously, it’s becoming a problem.

So Richie picks Eddie up from his apartment, and they meet Ben and Bev at their usual spot, and they both get beers — “Better savor that, Eds, if the demon kills you tomorrow that’s going to be the last beer you ever drink.” “Shut the fuck up, Richie.” — and when Eddie goes to the bar to get another beer and leaves Richie, Ben, and Bev at the table by themselves, Bev turns to Richie and asks, “So when are you gonna finally ask Eddie out?”

It’s Richie’s first time doing a spit take — a genuine one, not the fake ones he tries in Eddie’s apartment that result in a very unamused Eddie cursing him out for spitting all over his carpet.

“What the fuck?” Richie splutters.

“Was that not the intended outcome of all of…” Bev gestures. “This?”

“What? There is no  _ this. _ ” He feels like someone slipped something in his drink, or he had a stroke, or something. He’s never had a stroke, of course, but he’s pretty sure this is what it feels like.

Bev raises one eyebrow. Richie hates it when she does that. “So you’re saying you  _ haven’t  _ been pining for like...nine years now?”

“Okay, it  _ definitely  _ hasn’t been that long.”

“But you admit there  _ has  _ been pining?” Ben jumps in with a grin, and what the fuck is happening right now, Ben is supposed to be the  _ nice one. _

“What are you — no! I’m not — ” But Ben and Bev are just looking at each other with knowing glances, like just because they got their shit together years ago they know  _ anything,  _ so Richie breaks off, frustrated. “I’m not pining, okay? I’d never betray Eddie’s mom like that.”

Ben chuckles, but Bev just rolls her eyes. “Richie, we all know there’s something going on there.”

“You sound like the thirteen-year-old girls in my YouTube comments,” Richie says, deadpan. “Wait, don’t tell me — those comments have been from you this whole time.” Bev gives him an unimpressed look, and Richie's just joking, but he also wouldn’t be surprised. Bev means well, but she’s a bit of a meddler, and she’s just conniving enough to spam his YouTube comments.

“Richie, in all seriousness, you should go for it,” Ben says, and Richie wants to be angry with him for ganging up on him like this, but he sounds so kind and genuine that it’s kind of hard to be angry with him at all.

And it’s not like Richie’s never thought about going for it before. He has, several times, because maybe it’d be nice to finally get everything out there in the open. But hell, Richie and Eddie  _ work  _ together. On  _ camera.  _ If things went wrong — and they probably would, because he’s Richie fucking Tozier — there’s no way they could keep up a charade of normalcy enough to still do their jobs. Not to mention Eddie is his best friend; he’s known him for  _ eons,  _ it feels like. He has no idea how to cross that line, and with as big of a risk as the outcome could be, he isn’t sure he has the energy to figure it out.

And he could explain all of this to Ben and Bev, but they’re both being meddling shits right now, and he doesn’t want to give them the satisfaction. So instead he says, “I don’t know where you guys are getting this from, but Eddie and I don’t have a  _ thing.  _ The guy is a hypochondriac wrapped in hyperactivity wrapped in a pastel Polo shirt. Even if I — even if there was a  _ thing, _ there’s no way that would work out, okay?”

It’s more or less the truth, but Ben and Bev don’t look wholly convinced. Goddamn, has he been  _ that  _ obvious this whole time?

But before Richie has to come up with some other bullshit response, Eddie arrives with his beer and slides into the spot next to Richie, and the subject is thankfully dropped.

The rest of the night proceeds as a typical Friday night grabbing beers would be expected to go, except with one small hitch — Eddie is drinking a lot more than usual. He finishes his second beer in minutes, and after that he grabs two more and drinks them pretty quickly, too.

He’s starting to get tipsy when Richie finally asks, “Dude, you okay?”

“Yep,” Eddie says, popping the ‘p’ as he cracks open his fifth beer. “Never better.”

And Richie frowns, because they’re just beers, but Eddie is tiny, and just about the biggest lightweight he’s ever met. “When I said you should savor it before the demon kills you, I was joking,” he says. “Do you know that? It’s important to me that you know that.”

Eddie doesn’t answer, which is maybe more concerning than the drinking, because he has never, in the time he’s known him, let Richie have the last word. It’s when Eddie’s about to open his ninth beer that Richie grows concerned enough to say, “Hey, Eds, it’s getting pretty late.”

“So?” Eddie says, setting the beer down. He’s not  _ drunk  _ drunk, but he’s well past tipsy. “That’s when I do my best ghost hunting.”

“That’s tomorrow, buddy,” Richie reminds him gently. “So we should probably stop so you can get ready for the big day, huh?”

Eddie stops to think this over, and Richie takes that opportunity to take his beer while he’s not paying attention. 

“Whatever,” Eddie says in a grouchy sort of voice that shouldn’t be cute but still kind of is. “’S not like you care.”

Richie blinks. “What?”

“Don’t even believe in ghosts,” Eddie continues, frowning even further.

Richie sighs. “Yeah, okay. I’m gonna drive you home.”  And after some mild protesting, and a bit of convincing from Ben and Bev, Eddie agrees.

“Taking care of him while he’s drunk is  _ definitely  _ boyfriend behavior,” Bev says as they’re leaving, when Eddie is out of earshot. “Just so you’re aware.”

“Shut up, Bev.”

But Bev just grins, and Richie rolls his eyes and ushers Eddie out the door.

The ride is awkward, because Eddie’s quiet when he’s drunk — which is very decidedly Not Normal — and when Richie finally arrives at Eddie’s apartment building, Eddie opens his car door as soon as they’re parked, and Richie follows suit.

“You don’t have to walk me to my apartment, you know.”

“You’ve got a lot of stairs in this building, Eds,” Richie says, leaning against the driver’s side door. Eddie watches him from the other side, silent. “Can’t risk you falling to your death and depriving our viewers of watching you get murdered by a demon tomorrow. Besides — ”

“Just  _ shut up,  _ Richie,” Eddie says, and for the first time in maybe his whole life, Richie falls silent. “You know you don’t have to turn everything into a joke, right? You could try to process your emotions and actually be serious for a second like a normal person.”

Richie whistles. “Eight Beer Eddie is Angry Eddie, huh?”

“God, Richie, you just fucking drive me  _ crazy _ !” Eddie bursts out, and Richie blinks because this is...well, Richie’s never seen Eddie angry like this before. Sure, Eddie is angry about something pretty much 90% of the time, but not when he’s drunk, and not like  _ this  _ — not in a way that feels real, and scary, and directed at Richie, specifically.

“It’s just,” Eddie is saying now, quickly and angrily and to Richie, even though he’s not looking directly at him, “It’s like….you never want anyone to know if you’re joking around or being genuine and then when I think I’ve finally got it all figured out after ten fucking years I start to think that maybe you — that we could actually — ” Then Eddie breaks off and lets out a frustrated groan. “But that’s stupid, right? Like, what a fucking idiot.”

Richie isn’t quite sure if Eddie or himself is the fucking idiot in this situation, and at this point, he’s too afraid to ask. “Uh, are you — ”

“You’re just — ” Eddie interrupts, and finally he turns to look at Richie;  _ really  _ look at him, and Richie falls silent again. “You’re just such a fucking  _ asshole  _ sometimes. You know that?”

Richie opens his mouth, but no sound comes out, so he tries again. “Eds — ”

“I told you not to fucking call me that,” Eddie snaps, and he still sounds angry, but there’s something else there, too.

“Eddie,” Richie tries again, slower this time, like he’s approaching a wounded animal and not trying to communicate with a 33-year-old man. “You’re drunk.”

Eddie laughs — even though Richie isn’t quite sure he’s gotten the joke — and scrubs his hands over his face. “Yeah. I know. Just — whatever.” He looks down and kicks his foot against a pebble on the ground. “Just forget I said all of that, okay?”

“Eddie — ”

“I’ll just see you tomorrow,” he says, and before Richie can say anything else, Eddie is walking away and into his apartment building, and with nothing else to do, Richie climbs into his car and drives home.

  
  
  
  
  


Richie doesn’t know what exactly he did to get that kind of reaction out of Eight Beer Eddie last night, but he  _ does  _ know that he doesn’t want to start ghoul hunting with any awkwardness hanging between the two of them, so as soon as Eddie climbs into Richie’s car, he says, “Hey, dude, I don’t know if I said something last night to set you off, but — ”

“No, you didn’t,” Eddie says shortly, buckling his seatbelt. Richie blinks, and Eddie looks up at him and smiles. It’d be reassuring if Eddie didn’t look so awkward while doing it. “Relax, you’re fine, honest. I think I was just drunk, and nervous about today, and I just started saying shit I didn’t mean, so. Sorry.”

“Oh,” Richie says. “It’s cool, dude.”

He feels relieved, but he also can’t stop the traitorous voice that whispers in his ear,  _ Drunk words are just sober thoughts, Richie. _

Richie quickly tells that voice to fuck off and says to Eddie, “Ready to hunt some ghouls?”

“Nope,” Eddie says with a smile, and it looks a little more real this time.

The Ellie House is only like an hour from Eddie’s apartment, which is reassuring because the car ride is very silent and very awkward. Normally they spend the trip to these places talking and trying to distract Eddie from the ghosts they’re about to hunt, but the only sound in the car is the music playing from Richie’s Spotify playlist. Even when Richie purposefully shuffles to Africa by Toto, Eddie doesn’t say anything.

Finally — because if he doesn’t break the silence immediately he’s going to go crazy — Richie asks, “So, still hungover?”

“What?” Eddie glances over. “Oh, no, I’m fine.”

“You’re kinda quiet.”

“I don’t have to  talk  _all_ the time.”

“Since when?” Richie jokes, but Eddie doesn’t laugh, and suddenly Richie is terrified that something is  _ really  _ wrong. Not that Eddie not laughing at his jokes isn’t normal — it’s pretty regular behavior, actually — but for Eddie to be so quiet on top of everything he said last night…

He replays the night in his head, trying to pinpoint the exact moment where he would’ve fucked up enough to make things like  _ this,  _ but he can’t think of anything.

Maybe he’s being ridiculous. They’re about to hunt a demon, for God’s sake — Eddie’s mind is probably already starting to meld. And he always gets a little weird before they do these things, anyway. But it's never been like this before.

He huffs out a sigh, hating himself for freaking out more about Eddie’s behavior than the fact that he’s driving to a house that’s literally haunted by a demon. But Richie’s been prioritizing Eddie for an embarrassingly long time, so it’s not like this is anything out of the ordinary. 

And anyway. Ghosts aren’t real.

He’s almost relieved when they finally arrive at the Ellie House. Eddie, on the other hand, inhales sharply as soon as they pull into the driveway, even though it literally looks like almost every other house Richie has ever seen.

Stan — who pulls his car in behind Richie’s shortly after Eddie and Richie arrive — makes quick work of unpacking their equipment from his car, and Richie and Eddie help set up the cameras in each room of the house. It’s a quieter affair than normal, but Richie figures it’s nothing too out of the ordinary until Stan pulls him aside before they start rolling and asks, “Hey, is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Richie says, and when Stan raises an eyebrow, he sighs. “I don’t know. We got drinks with Ben and Bev last night and Eddie was being really weird. But it’s fine. It’s not gonna affect the shoot, or anything.”

Stan frowns. “Okay, that’s good, but...I kinda just wanted to make sure you guys were okay in general.”

“Oh.”

Stan rolls his eyes. “Look, I know I give you guys shit, but you’re also like, my closest friends. Aside from Mike,” he adds, and Richie snorts. “I just wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

Richie feels touched, but also guilty, and makes a mental note to start cutting Stan some slack. “We’re gonna be okay. I think.”

Stan gives him a smile. “Okay, good. It’s weird seeing you two not permanently attached at the hip.” He pats Richie on the shoulder. “Think you’re ready to start?”

Richie says yes, and in about five minutes, he and Eddie are sitting in the foyer of the Ellie House in some old, haunted armchairs, and the camera is rolling.

“This week on  _ Unsolved,  _ we investigate the infamous Ellie House that resides just outside of L.A. as part of our ongoing investigation into the question: are ghosts real?”

“Hell no,” Richie says, cheerily and right on cue, and Eddie rolls his eyes but still looks a little amused, so Richie decides things will be fine.

After Eddie explains a bit of the house’s background — doors open and shut on their own, picture frames fall off the walls, every family who’s lived in it has moved out due to it being inhabited by a demon that appears in the form of a little girl, yada yada typical ghost bullshit, when the hell did this become Richie’s day job — they take a tour through the house, lingering in the most “active” rooms to see if they can make some sort of contact. Evidently, the most active spot in the entire house is the upstairs bathroom, where one of the previous owners saw a little girl — Ellie, presumably — standing in the corner of the room.

“Imagine trying to take a shit and all of the sudden there’s a fucking creepy girl just staring at you,” Richie says after Eddie finishes the story.

“Maybe that’s her whole thing,” Eddie says. “Like, she’s chill up until you take a nasty dump in the toilet and then she shows up like, ‘okay dude, you gotta get outta here.’”

“And  _ you’ve  _ been calling her a demon this whole time.” Richie shakes his head. “You’ve been villainizing the true hero of this story, man.”

After some more exploration — there’s a basement in this house that even gives  _ Richie  _ a chill up his spine — and Richie hiding in a dark corner to jump out and scare Eddie at least once, Stan packs up all his equipment aside from some flashlights, the spirit box, and Richie and Eddie’s personal cameras. He looks relieved as he packs, and Richie knows he’d never admit it, but Stan gets just as nervous about going to these places as Eddie does.

“Don’t die, you guys. This place is fucking terrifying,” Stan says as he’s getting ready to leave.

Richie gives him a salute, Eddie laughs nervously, and then Stan is gone.

Richie looks over at Eddie. It’s a little after midnight — “The witching hour.” “That’s 3 AM, Rich.” — and predictably, Eddie is nervously fiddling with his camera. 

“Chill, Eds,” he says. “Nothing crazy has happened yet, right?”

Eddie looks up, alarmed. “Don’t say that!”

“Why, worried the demon is gonna hear me?”

“Yes!”

Richie wheezes. “Alright, Eddie Spaghetti, where to next?”

“Back to the bathroom,” Eddie informs him, turning to lead the way back up the stairs. “Also, just so you know, if we do see a little girl in there...I’m gonna shit myself.”

“Well, good thing we’ll be in the bathroom.”

Once they’re situated in the bathroom — Eddie leaning against the counter and Richie leaning against the wall opposite to him — Eddie does the worst thing he could possibly do.  He pulls out the spirit box.

“Dear God,” Richie says as Eddie switches it on, and the tiny room is filled with the sound that haunts Richie’s dreams at night. 

There are really no words to properly describe how annoying the spirit box is. The machine plays loud static, with the occasional word or phrase thrown in. These words and phrases are called “EVPs,” a fact that Richie did not know back in simpler times, when he didn’t hunt ghosts for a living. 

According to Eddie, the spirit box is the best equipment to use in capturing EVPs. According to Richie, the spirit box is a giant pain in his ass.

“Ellie?” Eddie asks. “Are you there?”

The static continues. Richie thuds his head against the wall behind him. 

“My name is Eddie, and this is Richie,” Eddie says. “Can you say our names back to us?”

There’s a brief break in the static this time, and Eddie freezes. “I think it just said ‘Eds.’”

The spirit box absolutely did  _ not  _ say Eds, but still Richie says, “Tell Ellie that Eds is  _ my  _ nickname for you and she needs to back off.”

There’s a brief break in the static again. “Okay, I heard a ‘no.’”

“And I just heard gibberish.”

“All you  _ ever  _ hear is gibberish,” Eddie grumbles, and then, speaking to his stupid machine again, “Ellie, how long have you lived in this house?” Static. “Are you a little girl who died here? Or are you...something else?”

More static. 

“If you want this guy to shut up,” says Richie, “Which is pretty much something anyone who’s ever met him has wanted, you’re gonna have to talk to us.”

Eddie wheezes, and then there’s another break in the static. “Another no!” He says, looking partly terrified but a little excited at the same time.  Richie had heard ‘no’ too that time, actually, but one word overheard amongst the chatter of static is by no means concrete proof of the existence of ghosts, so he just gives Eddie a look.

“Ellie, was that you? Are you there?” Eddie asks. After evidently not getting the response he was hoping for, he tries again and asks, “Ellie, are you a demon?”

Even Richie can’t deny that the static breaks long enough for them to hear the phrase “yes I am.” It’s still not proof of anything, because the spirit box is Ghost Science, and not Real Science, but he doesn’t quite have the heart to tell Eddie that, who looks so terrified but also so excited that Richie’s worried he might shit his pants after all.

“Did you hear that?” Eddie asks in a shaky whisper.

“Yeah,” Richie admits.

“Holy shit,” Eddie says, and now he’s starting to look more excited than anything else. “That was so  _ clear!  _ I can’t believe we got an EVP from an actual demon!”

He’s speaking more rapidly than usual — the way he always does when he gets overly excited about ghosts or the Polo shirt sale at Target or whatever — and he’s positively beaming at Richie, his eyes bright and shining, so Richie really can’t help but say, “You’re so cute, Eds.”

It sounds way too honest in the tiny haunted bathroom, so Richie feels his face burn and finds himself wishing he hadn’t said it at all. To cover for it and try to turn it into a joke, he reaches forward to ruffle Eddie’s hair.

But before he can, Eddie is ducking out of the way. “Stop.”

“Oh.” Richie’s hand drops jerkily by his side. “Uh, I was just — ”

“No, just —” Eddie’s looking in Richie’s general direction, because there’s not much else to look at in this cramped bathroom, but he doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “You can’t keep doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“The touchy-feely, flirty stuff, dude, what do you think?” Eddie says angrily, and Richie freezes. “I just — I know you don’t mean it, so just cut it out.”

“Eddie,” Richie says quietly. “What are you talking about?”

“I  _ heard  _ you last night, okay?” Eddie bursts out, and then, quieter, “I heard you.”

“Heard me — ”

“With Ben and Bev?” He says, and when Richie’s face remains blank, he continues, in possibly the worst impression of Richie he’s ever heard, “‘Oh yeah, Eddie is super lame, and terrible, and a fucking joke, and why would I ever be interested in a hyperactive hypochondriac that wears too many ugly Polo shirts.’”

Richie feels the blood drain from his face. Everything seems to be moving slower, somehow, like when he has dreams where he’s running but he can never move fast enough. Or like he’s having another stroke.

His mind starts buzzing with all of the things he should say, but the first to come out is, “How the  _ fuck  _ did you hear that?”

“That’s  _ seriously  _ your first response?”

“Yes it’s my first response! You were on the other side of the fucking bar!”

“I’m not sure if anyone’s told you this before, but you talk  _ very  _ loudly,” Eddie reminds him, deadpan. “ _ Especially  _ when you’ve been drinking.”

Richie tries to say something else, but no sound comes out. 

“I just — you didn’t have to say all that, you know,” Eddie mumbles. “You could’ve just left it at ‘no, there’s nothing going on.’ Or, ‘no, we’re just friends.’ Or something like that. You didn’t have to talk about me like — like it’d be  _ impossible  _ for you to ever feel that way about me, of all people, or whatever.”

Richie doesn’t think he’s ever heard Eddie speak so quietly, and the worst of it all is that he sounds... _ sad,  _ and that isn’t right, because how could Eddie not know, how has he  _ still  _ not figured it out —

He swallows. “Are we seriously doing this right now? In the middle of a ghost investigation?”

“ _ Yes,  _ we’re doing this right now!” Eddie says, angry again. “I’m fucking pissed at you!”

No matter how many times Richie’s imagined this scenario — in an abstract, hypothetical sort of way — he’s never imagined it happening in a haunted bathroom. He almost wants to convince Eddie to focus on the investigation, because even screaming at radio static would be better than this. But at the end of the day, Richie would rather Eddie know he’s been pining over him for an embarrassing amount of time than spend an eternity letting Eddie believe some bullshit he’d come up with when he was scared and just trying to cover his own ass.

So Richie takes a deep breath and does what he does best. He starts talking.

“Okay, look,” he says, hoping his voice isn’t shaking as much as the hands he has shoved in his pockets. “I’m sorry you heard all of that, okay? And I’m sorry I said it. I mean, I was being honest — and I was exaggerating, obviously, I mean your Polo shirts aren’t  _ terrible  _ — but I didn’t mean any of it. Well. Okay, I sort of did, but not all of it, and not in the way you think.”

Eddie crosses his arms over his chest. “This is the worst apology I’ve ever heard in my entire life.” 

“Okay,  _ fine, _ ”  Richie says with gritted teeth. _ “ _ Do you want to know the truth?” Eddie waits, expectant. “The truth is that you’re a fucking idiot.”

Eddie stares. “ _ What? _ ”

“You think I’ve done this show for four fucking years now because I enjoy spending all of my time shouting at air and radio static?” Richie demands. “You’ve never  _ once  _ questioned why I — a known rational, logical person that doesn’t believe in ghosts or demons or any of the rest of that bullshit — ”

“You don’t have to bring the ghosts into this, you know — ”

“I do all this shit because of  _ you! _ ” Richie cries. “Because  _ you  _ enjoy it and it makes  _ you  _ happy and at the end of the day I don’t care what the fuck  _ I’m  _ doing as long as I get to spend it with you.”

Eddie snaps his mouth shut in surprise.

“And yeah, I said all of that stuff yesterday. I never thought you would hear it, and I’m sorry you did, and I’m especially sorry that it hurt you and that now things are weird and we have to talk about all of it in front of cameras and ghosts in this fucking bathroom,” Richie says, kicking the rug at his feet for good measure. “But you are uptight, and hyperactive, and a hypochondriac who needs a wardrobe change, and I don’t  _ care.  _ You’re, like. My best friend, and my favorite person, and the fact that you haven’t figured that out after ten fucking years is fucking stupid.”

“Rich,” Eddie says softly.

“Whatever, just — ” Richie looks back down at the rug. “I never meant that we wouldn’t work out because I wasn’t interested in you, or there was something wrong with you, because that’s fucking bullshit. I just meant that nothing would ever happen between us because I fucking  _ know  _ that you would never feel that way about me.”

It’s maybe the most honest Richie has ever been in his life. He’d hoped maybe finally saying it all out loud would be a little relieving, but Eddie is eerily silent, so instead Richie just feels like he might pass out. His mind reels, wondering what Eddie will finally say in response.

What he doesn’t expect, though, is for Eddie to ask, “Did you turn the spirit box off?”

Richie stares. “ _ What? _ ”

Eddie looks down at the spirit box, and Richie follows his gaze. It sits in Eddie’s hands, completely silent.

Richie frowns. “How long has that been — ”

There’s a loud crash from the hallway. He turns to see that the painting that was hanging on the hook across from the bathroom has smashed onto the floor.

Richie turns back to Eddie, who genuinely looks like he’s shat in his pants already. Still, Eddie slowly walks out into the hallway, shining his light at the broken painting and then up and down the hallway. Evidently not seeing a demon child anywhere, Eddie turns back to Richie and says hopefully, “Maybe it was just the wind?”

Richie tries to say, “That’s my line,” but before he can, the bathroom door slams shut. 

“Richie?” Eddie calls from the other side, sounding a little panicked.

“Relax, man, it was just a draft or something.”

“I  _ swear to God _ — ”

Richie snickers to himself and then pushes the bathroom door open.

Or he tries to, at least. The door is locked.

Richie turns the handle again, but the door won’t budge. “Uh,” he says.

“What?”

“I think the door’s stuck.”

“ _ What? _ ” Eddie repeats, but at a higher and far more alarmed pitch. Richie hears him jiggle the handle, but the door stays closed. “Richie, what the fuck, quit messing around. This isn’t funny.”

“Dude, I swear I’m not doing this.”

“Is it stuck? Or is it just locked? See if you can pick the lock or whatever.”

Richie hasn’t picked a lock since high school, but he dutifully bends down and pulls his flashlight out to examine the lock on the door.  But before he can make any progress, a weird thing happens. Or several weird things. The first is that the bathroom suddenly gets weirdly cold. The second is that Richie gets that feeling you get sometimes when you feel like there’s someone else in the room with you.

And the third is that he hears someone giggle right behind them.

Eddie, who had previously been shouting more and more frantically from the other side of the door, falls immediately silent. “Rich?” He whispers.

“Yeah. I know.” Richie says, and swallowing, slowly turns around.

In the corner of the bathroom, a little girl stands there, smiling at him.

“Hey, Eds,” Richie says, in a very loud and panicked voice. “So, uh. Just so you know. There’s a fucking little girl in here.”

“Are you fucking — ” Eddie starts, even louder and more panicked. “Richie, if you’re fucking with me…”

“EDDIE,” Richie says, so loud that he almost flinches himself. “IF YOU DON’T SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET ME OUT OF HERE, I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU.”

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie mutters. Then a loud, pounding sound comes from the other side of the door, like he’s throwing himself against it to get it open. But Richie almost doesn’t hear that noise over the sound of himself doing the exact same thing. 

“What does she look like?” Eddie shouts.

Richie glances back out of the corner of his eye, because there’s no fucking way he’s turning all the way back around again. The girl still stands there, smiling with all her teeth like one of the twins out of  _ The Shining,  _ or some shit. “Really fucking creepy, Eds, what the fuck do you think?” Richie shouts.

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie says again, still pounding against the door, and then, “HEY! HEY, DEMON! YOU CAN’T KILL RICHIE RIGHT AFTER HE CONFESSED HE’S BEEN IN LOVE WITH ME FOR LIKE TEN YEARS! THAT’S, LIKE...A HATE CRIME!”

“What the fuck?” Richie splutters, still frantically trying to beat down the door, which has yet to give way. “I’m 99% sure I didn’t say  _ any  _ of that!”

“I’m trying to help you, jackass!”

“If you wanna help me so bad then get this fucking door down, dipshit!”

“I’m  _ working  _ on it!” Eddie screams, and then there are three very loud thumps against the door, and on the third, the door breaks off its hinges and would’ve crushed Richie flat had he not grabbed it at the last minute and shoved it against the wall and out of the way.

And before Eddie can do anything ridiculous, like interrogate the ghost or ask it if it wants to experience the wonders of the spirit box, Richie grabs Eddie’s hand and hauls him out of the hallway, down the stairs, and out of the house and onto the lawn, where Richie collapses in relief.

Eddie, who was not far behind, immediately drops onto the ground next to him. 

“Holy shit,” he says, panting. His hands are on Richie’s face, moving back and forth, as if he’s trying to figure out if it’s still connected to the rest of his body. It would be sweet, if he hadn’t nearly knocked Richie’s glasses off in the process. “Holy shit,” he repeats.

“Yeah,” Richie practically wheezes out. He’s panting too.

Eddie lets out a sigh of relief and wraps his arms around Richie, pulling him closer. Richie rests his forehead against Eddie’s shoulder and Eddie rubs his hand up and down his back. “You’re okay,” he says, and even though Richie had been certain he was going to die only a moment before, he feels himself relax. He sighs against Eddie’s shoulder, shaky but relieved, and tightens his arms around Eddie’s waist.

“It’s fine, you’re okay,” Eddie says again. Then, “You’re okay, right?”

“Fuck no,” Richie says, and Eddie barks out a laugh. He lifts his head off Eddie’s shoulder, and Eddie takes that as an opportunity to hold his face in his hands and slowly tilt it around, like he’s still not  _ quite  _ sure it’s attached to his neck all the way, after all. “Dude, would you quit?”

“Sorry,” Eddie says, though he doesn’t withdraw his hands. Richie doesn’t completely mind. “Man. I thought you were a goner.”

“Yeah, me fucking too.” Eddie lifts his eyebrows at that, and Richie continues, “So, yeah, uh. I think I believe in ghosts now.”

Then Eddie jolts forward and kisses him.

Objectively, it’s not the best, as far as kisses go. It’s frantic, and the angle isn’t quite right, and it also happens while they’re sitting on the front lawn of a haunted house.

But also, it’s  _ Eddie,  _ and so for a moment Richie doesn’t care about the grass stains he’s getting on his pants, or the fact that he was nearly possessed by a demon. All he cares about is that Eddie — who’s a pain in his ass but makes him laugh harder than anyone he’s ever known, and who he’s been in love with for not quite ten years, but maybe eight and a half — is holding his face in his hands, curling his fingers into his hair, and  _ kissing  _ him.

After what could’ve either been seconds or eons, Eddie pulls away with a look on his face so soft and gentle that Richie feels a little overwhelmed. So he clears his throat and asks, “Did you just kiss me for romantic reasons or is it because I finally admitted ghosts are real?”

Eddie grins, sort of sheepish. “Is both an option?”

“I mean,” Richie says. “I’ll take it.”

“Shut up, Richie,” Eddie says, but the way he says it kind of sounds like the way Wesley would say “as you wish” in  _ The Princess Bride.  _ Richie wonders if that’s how he’s always said it. It’s nice — very nice, actually — but then Eddie says something that sounds even nicer, which is, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Fuck yes,” Richie agrees quickly, and then Eddie grabs his hand and pulls him towards the car.

  
  
  
  
  


“So I know you nearly died and all,” Eddie says at Richie’s apartment, afterward. “But is it bad that I’m very excited to have proof that demons exist?”

Richie should be angry with him for a statement like that, but he says it lying next to Richie, in Richie’s bed, wearing Richie’s shirt. And he’s gotta say, Eddie looks  _ really  _ good in his shirt. 

So when he answers, “Yes, actually,” he doesn’t sound all that angry.

“I wonder how people will react,” Eddie muses.

“Yeah, maybe we’ll get to go on  _ Ellen. _ ”

Eddie kicks him underneath the blanket, but he still laughs into Richie’s shoulder. 

“Seriously, though,” Richie continues. “You got proof of ghosts — ”

“Demons.”

“Whatever.  _ And  _ you got to make out with me at a haunted house. This is probably like, the best day of your life.”

But Eddie doesn’t laugh. Instead he lifts his head off Richie’s shoulder and tilts back to look up at him, and he says, soft and earnest, “Yeah, it kinda is.”

Richie turns brilliantly red. “Oh my God, shut the fuck up,” he says hoarsely, hitting Eddie in the chest. “You’re not allowed to be this cheesy. It’s illegal.”

“Oh, don’t,” Eddie scoffs. “You’re the one who delivered a big, cheesy confession in a bathroom with a demon.”

“Technically, the demon wasn’t there at the time.”

“And I still can’t believe you had the audacity to call  _ me  _ a dumbass when you’re the one that didn’t realize that  _ I’ve  _ been openly in love with  _ you  _ for  _ years, _ ” Eddie says. “I mean, I eat  _ food  _ after you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, we’re both idiots. Can we start making out again now?”

It’s not a whine, but it’s close enough, but Eddie rolls his eyes and leans forward to kiss him anyway. It’s nice, even though Eddie’s smiling too much for it to be much of a kiss at all. “Oh," Eddie says between kisses. “You left out the best part, which is that you finally admitted ghosts were real.”

“Oh yeah, about that,” Richie says, and Eddie pulls away. “I've been thinking, and technically, that was a demon, not a ghost, right?”

“Yes...” Eddie says slowly. "And your point is?”

“Well, the only proof we have is of demons,” Richie says. “The jury's still out on ghosts.”

Eddie stares at him for a while, and then says, “I fucking hate you.”

Richie beams at him. “No you don't.”

Eddie makes the face he always makes when he's trying not to smile but isn't doing a very good job of it. “No,” he finally says. “I really, really don't.”

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on twitter @scoopstroops if you wanna see me yell about IT some more


End file.
